No. The new sets are more and more from movies, so they add features from the movies( like the dwarf catapult from helms deep). However, kids can still do what they want with the set. A pirate ship could sail to bag end, or Darth Vader could fly a biplane. It's less of telling them how to play, and more of giving suggestions and adding cool features for the kids to play with.

I think that's a load of shit. The only reason old Lego sets were a little more abstract was because they didn't have all the advanced pieces to work with. Whether it's boxy or curvy, it's still Lego, and yo can still build something completely different with it. Sure, newer sets may contain pieces that are only really suited for one kind of creation (e.g. cars, air vehicles, houses), but that doesn't mean you can't build something else. I can't find the picture, but I started to make a book store out of the Highway Transport set. I never ended up finishing it, but it was definitely possible.

Just because something looks more like something, doesn't mean it can't be something else. I like to challenge myself every time I buy a set to build an alternate model with the pieces before I take it apart.

Last edited by aoffan23 on Sun Jan 20, 2013 11:24 am, edited 1 time in total.

aoffan23 wrote:I think that's a load of shit. The only reason old Lego sets were a little more abstract was because they didn't have all the advanced pieces to work with. Whether it's boxy or curvy, it's still Lego, and yo can still build something completely different with it. Sure, newer sets may contain pieces that are only really suited for one kind of creation (e.g. cars, air vehicles, houses), but that doesn't mean you can't build something else. I can't find the picture, but I started to make a book store out of the Highway Transport set. I never ended up finishing it, but it was definitely possible.

Just because something looks more like something, doesn't mean it can't be something else. I like to challenge myself every time I buy a set to build an alternate model with the pieces before I take it apart.

Actually, I feel like Lego has come a LONG way since the mid-90's, when they were creating wayyyyy too many truly single-purpose elements and really dumbing down construction techniques. Those sets were creatively limiting. The fact that a lot of the Lego line is currently license-based doesn't.

And there have always been sets that "tell you what to build" via instruction books for the model the set was "supposed" to be, so I don't see how that's changed anything....

...although it is odd to read in books that certain themes (Blacktron, Black Falcons) are "evil" or "bad guys". I don't recall anything in either of those lines making that clear, so to me they were always simply other factions.

lorbaat wrote:...although it is odd to read in books that certain themes (Blacktron, Black Falcons) are "evil" or "bad guys". I don't recall anything in either of those lines making that clear, so to me they were always simply other factions.

I feel the same way about the new Chima theme. I thought they were all just individual tribes duking it out for the CHI, but then I saw the centrefold in one of the instruction booklets. It shows the eagles and lions on ones page (the blue/"good" side), and the crocs, ravens, and wolves on the other (red/"evil" side). Maybe they did that just to help market it to the kiddies, but I was really happy they were shying away from the good vs. evil template. Either way, I'm just glad they're balancing the amount of sets they each get.

lorbaat wrote:...although it is odd to read in books that certain themes (Blacktron, Black Falcons) are "evil" or "bad guys". I don't recall anything in either of those lines making that clear, so to me they were always simply other factions.

I don't think they thought about that in that way when they created them, either... I think this assumption could have been made later because in the later castle lines (Knights Kingdom I in particular) it was pretty clear that the Bulls were supposed to be the bad guys, in the latest Kingdoms line the Lions are again the good guys (at least, the dragon knights are shown to be the invaders) so maybe people just used the same 'logic' of the lions being the good guys in the old sets. Or maybe they just thought 'black' falcons and a darker colour scheme referred to evil.

As for the main question, I find it hard to answer myself (which is why I opened this topic) because of course I'm putting myself in between what I consider to be 'old' (to me, everything before Royal Knights) and 'new' sets (everything from KK II on). As far as design goes, I wouldn't underestimate the older sets though, as far as I can tell there's always been better lines and worse lines.

I remember in the KK I line or the old Star Wars models, there were always some alternate builds (without much instructions) to give you an idea of what you could do with them, and / or scenarios that weren't necessarily in the books. The best example would be the hilarious chase comic with a rebel pilot and darth vader in the Y-Wing set. I don't really know if that's still the case. Mill village raid shows pictures of the townsfolk fighting the dragon knights (a logical assumption) and with other sets, it does seem to me like the conflict is always pointed out more clearly.

Suffice to say that I think kids will mostly just do what they want though (I remember reading about a dad who's kid thought the evil wizard was the coolest character in the fantasy franchise, so he always let him crush the crownies), but at the same time I remember trying to simulate stuff from stuff I liked with (like creating orcs when there were little parts to actually do so), building my own helm's deep or Gandalf rather than just buying him, etc... All in all, I do think Lego is creating clearer 'scenarios' for their sets (Jay has to get the kendo blade from bonezai-something!), but I don't necessarily think it's a problem because I can't imagine kids paying too much attention to this.

I remember in the KK I line or the old Star Wars models, there were always some alternate builds (without much instructions) to give you an idea of what you could do with them, and / or scenarios that weren't necessarily in the books. The best example would be the hilarious chase comic with a rebel pilot and darth vader in the Y-Wing set. I don't really know if that's still the case.

I remember the same thing, most notably with the X-wing set. It showed you a boat, a walker, and even a lightsaber made from the engine parts. The comic was pretty fun, too.

Anyway, I read somewhere that the reason they got rid of the alternate builds was because parents complained that their kids couldn't build them, since there weren't instructions for them. Not sure if that's true, but that's a damn shame if it is. The original wave of Star Wars Ep.III sets had alternate builds, though.

Hmm, I saw them more as a ways to get inspired, to see what the parts could do or could be used for, than things to actually attempt. It's a shame if they got rid of them, if only because it was sometimes hilarious to see how much effort it took a designer to make something with a very limited set of parts. Then again, some were even quite impressive (like the alternate submarine you could make with the MTT set). Even today when I 'base myself on' a design I see, I usually end up with something different.

Right now I'm thinking the provided parts are the most important thing for stimulating creativity. KK I sets were pretty low on parts, so that when I bought black knight's castle and even royal knight's castle I was amazed by the amount of parts. Despite owning all of the KK I sets (some of them several times) I never really got around to doing much with them because of the low amount of parts. On the positive side I did get a lot of those lion head pieces which I'm still using a lot right now.

I'm unsure how I feel about the big molded parts, like the dragon's heads. Sure, they look nice, but there's not exactly much else you can do with it. You can build an alternate creature, or use the head as a ram / wall decoration, but you'll always be stuck with it. I suppose it's ok as long as they don't use too many of them.

I'm sort of split in my feelings here. The movie sets really don't appeal to me very much, but the new non-movie lines like Monster Hunters and Ninjago are really cool, creative, and original. The movie sets also seem more directed at adults than the non-movie sets, but then again I do remember loving my X-Wing when I got it, although it got ripped apart really fast because I got bored of it.

lorbaat wrote:...although it is odd to read in books that certain themes (Blacktron, Black Falcons) are "evil" or "bad guys". I don't recall anything in either of those lines making that clear, so to me they were always simply other factions.

I don't remember the Black Falcons being badguys, but the whole point of Blacktrons was that they were always getting hunted down and locked up by the Space Police. And this was back in the eighties, when we were dumb and still thought police were goodguys.

lorbaat wrote:...although it is odd to read in books that certain themes (Blacktron, Black Falcons) are "evil" or "bad guys". I don't recall anything in either of those lines making that clear, so to me they were always simply other factions.

I don't remember the Black Falcons being badguys, but the whole point of Blacktrons was that they were always getting hunted down and locked up by the Space Police. And this was back in the eighties, when we were dumb and still thought police were goodguys.

The Lego Book (I don't have it handy to give publisher info) refers to both as bad guys. In a particularly florid bit of prose it actually talks about one or the other of Black Falcons or Crusaders getting wiped out in a vicious series of battles.

I guess the Space Police chasing Blacktron always felt... tacked on to me, because I had a couple years to get used to Blacktron just existing before the Space Pigs started jackbooting all over the universe.

It is a lot easier to separate "good" from "evil" factions now that all minifigs don't come with the standard classic smileyhead.